1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming system capable of mutually transmitting/receiving data between a plurality of image forming apparatuses via a network, an image forming apparatus, a control method therefor, and a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image forming apparatus can incorporate an external storage device such as a hard disk to store document data, spool print data, temporarily save print data, and save printed data. An image forming apparatus of this type can constitute a system capable of communicating with a plurality of devices via a network.
For example, according to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-191041, a print processing apparatus having a data save unit stores print data in the data save unit. At this time, the print processing apparatus changes the save format of print data in accordance with the print frequency. As for print data of high print frequency, the print processing apparatus saves its raw print data (whose capacity is large but re-printing speed is high).
There is a system in which a plurality of image forming apparatuses exist, each comprise an external storage device such as a hard disk, and can cooperate with each other via a network. This system can store document data to be printed in the external storage device of each image forming apparatus, or distribute one document data to a plurality of image forming apparatuses to print.
In this system, it is important in terms of operability to distributedly store document data in a plurality of image forming apparatuses without causing a user to be aware of where the document data is stored.
This system allows a user to similarly handle local data managed in an image forming apparatus operated by him and remote data managed by another image forming apparatus on the network. The performance of various processes such as a print process in the system greatly changes depending on whether document data required by a user is stored at a proper position. If the data storage position is improper in the system capable of distributedly processing target data, the performance of various processes such as a print process degrades.